By Manuel Mogato
ULUGAN BAY, Philippines, April 25 (Reuters) - U.S. and Philippine commandos waded ashore on Wednesday in a mock assault to retake a small island in energy-rich waters disputed with China, part of a drill involving thousands of troops Beijing had said would raise the risk of armed conflict.
The exercises, part of annual U.S.-Philippine war games on the southwestern island of Palawan, coincide with another standoff between Chinese and Philippine vessels near Scarborough Shoal in a different part of the South China Sea.
China has territorial disputes with the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan across the South China Sea, each searching for gas and oil while building up their navies and military alliances.
China said last week the drill would raise the risk of confrontation. On Wednesday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said China was committed to dialogue and diplomacy to resolve the dispute.
"We are certainly worried about the South China Sea issue," Cui told a news briefing in Beijing, saying "some people tried to mix two unrelated things, territorial sovereignty and freedom of navigation".
The comments come before high-level talks with the Obama administration. China, which claims the South China Sea based on historical records, has sought to resolve disputes bilaterally but its neighbours worry over what some see as growing Chinese assertiveness in its claims in the region.
"Location (of the drill) is irrelevant," Ensign Bryan Mitchell, spokesman for the U.S. Marines, told reporters.
"These exercises take place on a regular basis. This year it happens to be in Palawan. The planning for this took place months ago prior to any events that are currently in the headlines."
U.S. President Barack Obama has sought to reassure regional allies that Washington would serve as a counterbalance to China in the South China Sea, part of his campaign to "pivot" U.S. foreign policy towards Asia after wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Philippine military officials sought to play down the exercise. Lieutenant General Juancho Sabban, military commander for the western Philippines, said the drill "simply means we want to work together, improve our skills".
Sabban's area of command includes Reed Bank and the Spratlys, a group of 250 mostly uninhabitable islets spread over 427,350 sq km (165,000 sq miles) west of Palawan.
The Spratlys are claimed entirely by China, Taiwan and Vietnam and in part by Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines.

HUGE OIL, GAS RESERVES
Proven and undiscovered oil reserve estimates in the South China Sea range as high as 213 billion barrels of oil, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in a 2008 report. That would surpass every country's proven oil reserves except Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, according to the BP Statistical Review.
A Philippine exploration firm, Philex Petroleum Corp , said on Tuesday its unit, Forum Energy Plc, had found more natural gas than expected around Reed Bank, where Chinese navy vessels tried to ram one of Forum Energy's survey ships last year.
The Philippines is due to open oil-and-gas exploration bids in Reed Bank on Friday.
Vietnam reasserted its claim to the Spratlys and the Paracel islands, known in Chinese as the Xisha islands, further west of Scarborough Shoal in what it calls the East Sea.
Self-ruled Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province, reiterated its claims over territories in the South China Sea and urged "countries concerned to exercise self-restraint so that peaceful resolutions can be reached through consultation".
Nearly 7,000 American and Philippine troops are taking part in the two-week drills that are taking place at sea and in different parts of the main Luzon island.
On Wednesday, about 100 commandos came ashore from U.S. and Philippine ships in a simulated amphibious assault at Palawan province to recapture an island supposedly taken by militants, officials said. Earlier estimates had put their number in the hundreds.
Jumping from rubber boats as they hit the shore, the commandos engaged in a mock firefight, making their way inch by inch from the beach to a navy facility to rescue "hostages" and recapture the base.
Four days ago, commando teams rappelled from U.S. helicopters and landed from rubber boats in a mock assault to retake an oil rig in the northern part of Palawan, 18 km (11 miles) off the town of El Nido on the South China Sea.
The annual war games come under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, part of a web of security alliances the United States built in the Asia-Pacific region during the Cold War.
The drills are a rehearsal of a mutual defence plan by the two allies to repel any aggression in the Philippines.
Hundreds of kilometres to the north, a Philippine coast guard ship patrols near Scarborough Shoal, a group of half-submerged rock formations 124 nautical miles west of the main Luzon island, where Chinese fishermen were accosted by Philippine officials three weeks ago, sparking the latest conflict between the two countries.
Manila officials say Chinese response on the Scarborough shoal issue was "based on inaccurate appreciation of the fact and dynamics of the negotiations." (Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING, John Ruwitch in HANOI and Jonathan Standing in TAIPEI; Editing by Nick Macfie)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/southchinasea-idUSL3E8FP6512 0120425

Disco_Destroyer wrote:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jun2011/sing-j07.shtml

Gates outlines aggressive agenda for US imperialism in Asia
By Joseph Santolan
7 June 2011
In a speech given in Singapore on June 4, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates laid out plans for American military expansion in the Asian region and for heightened confrontation with China. His remarks, delivered at the 10th International Institute for SecThe British (UK) 9/11 Truth Campaign portal, website and forumsurity Studies (IISS) Asia Security Summit, came amid rapidly rising tensions between China and other claimants to the South China Sea.
The 10th IISS Asia Security Summit, known as the Shangri-La dialogue, took place from June 3 to 5. Previous years have seen military and diplomatic figures speaking on key regional issues at plenary sessions. Gates has attended the past five years and used his address last year to unequivocally warn China that “intimidation” of American oil corporations companies operating in the South China Sea would not be tolerated. This year the Chinese Defense Minister attended for the first time, and delivered an address to the summit as well.
Regional tensions have mounted substantially since Gates’s speech last year, particularly over the disputed waters of the South China Sea. The waters are a vital shipping lane and the seabed contains large oil and gas deposits. The South China Sea is claimed in whole or in part by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines. The intensifying regional friction reflects the deepening confrontation between the US, whose global economic position has been in steady decline, and China.
The past two weeks saw two confrontations. On May 26, Vietnam accused China of cutting the cables being laid by an oil exploration vessel belonging to the state-owned corporation PetroVietnam, which was conducting pre-drilling surveys on behalf of ExxonMobil and the Canadian oil company Talisman Energy.
On May 31, the Philippines claimed that China had begun construction of new military facilities on unoccupied islands in the Spratly Island chain. It summoned the Chinese ambassador and denounced the construction as a “clear violation” of the 2002 ASEAN-China Declaration of Conduct in the South China Sea, which is an agreement for the shared use of disputed waters.
Gates was the first plenary speaker at the security summit. His speech was a shot fired across the bows of China and call to regional allies to oppose Chinese expansion in the region. It laid out the agenda for an expanded US military presence in the Asia-Pacific region and warned sharply against underestimating the US military commitment to the region.
Gates opened by pointing to what he said was “foremost in everyone’s mind”—the declining economic power of the US and its stretched military resources. The credibility of US global commitments was being questioned, he said. “No doubt, fighting two protracted and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has strained the US military’s ground forces, and worn out the patience and appetite of the American people for similar interventions in the future. On the domestic front, the United States is emerging slowly from a serious recession with huge budget deficits and growing debt that is putting new scrutiny and downward pressure on the US defense budget.”
Gates made clear that none of this—including mounting opposition from the American public—would deter Washington. We should expect to see, he said, a “significant growth in the breadth and intensity of US engagement in Asia.” This increased military deployment would establish a “defense posture across the Asia Pacific that is more geographically distributed, operationally resilient, and politically sustainable. A posture that maintains our presence in Northeast Asia while enhancing our presence in Southeast Asia and into the Indian Ocean.”
To this end, Gates stated, the US had deployed its newly-constructed Littoral Combat Ships to Singapore, from where to guard the vital strategic Straits of Malacca. “In the coming years,” he stated, “the US military is going to be increasing its port calls, naval engagements, and multilateral training efforts with multiple countries throughout the region.”
The US has a vital national interest, Gates asserted, in freedom of navigation. While the American military was already stretched thin by two ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would engage in “key modernization programs [which] would address one of the principal security challenges we see growing over the horizon: The prospect that new and disruptive technologies and weapons could be employed to deny US forces access to key sea routes and lines of communication.” This vow was obviously directed at Beijing. US diplomats and military officials have repeatedly leveled the charge against China that it is seeking to control the flow of commerce and sea traffic in the South China Sea.
Liang Guanglie, the Chinese defense minister, gave a stiff but deliberately conciliatory address. He studiously avoided mention of mounting tensions in the region, never mentioned Taiwan or the recent events with Vietnam and the Philippines. Only at the conclusion to his question and answer session, when repeatedly pressed by a reporter from the American Foreign Policy journal, did he respond to Gates’s claims with a certain amount of pique, saying “freedom of navigation has never been impeded, has never been a problem, and the situation in the South China Sea remains stable.”
Gates’s words, on the other hand, were sharply confrontational throughout. He had concluded his comments by declaring “history’s dustbin is littered with dictators and aggressors who underestimated America’s resilience, will and underlying power.” This was a threat, not even thinly disguised, to China.
During an interview prior to the summit, Gates stated: “The Chinese have learned a powerful lesson from the Soviet experience, and they do not intend to try and compete with us across the full range of military capabilities. But I think they are intending to build capabilities that give them a considerable freedom of action in Asia, and the opportunity to extend their influence.” As his speech made clear, the US intends to respond no less aggressively to China than it did to the Soviet Union.
Gates’s speech was hailed by the Wall Street Journal, in an opinion piece on June 6, which excitedly trumpeted the fact that “Beijing is uncomfortably confronting the reality that almost all regional countries choose not only to hedge with America, but are actively maneuvering to perpetuate American strategic dominance in Asia.”
As other summit speeches demonstrated, however, more than active maneuvering is taking place. Encouraged by US support, the Vietnamese and Philippine defense ministers spoke sharply and pointedly about recent events in the South China Sea.
Vietnamese Defense Minister General Phung Quang Thanh explicitly cited the May 26 confrontation between Chinese and Vietnamese ships and stated: “We truly expect no repetition of similar incidents.” China’s claim to the almost all of the South China Sea had no basis in international law, Thanh insisted. Deputy defence minister Nguyen Chi Vinh stated in an interview: “If any party concerned wishes to escalate, Vietnam will act to defend its sovereignty. We will not sit there and watch.”
The words of Philippine Defense Secretary General Voltaire Gazmin were even stronger. The actions of China had caused the Philippines “worry and concern,” he declared. Private business firms conducting resource exploration, i.e., oil drilling, were threatened. Gazmin denounced the construction of structures on the disputed islands. What he did not mention was that Philippine President Aquino announced just three months ago, after US prodding, that he would begin construction of military installations on precisely these disputed islands. The Chinese construction has simply pre-empted what the Philippines was preparing to do.
Gazmin stressed repeatedly that the Philippine response involved “collaboration with other armed forces to ensure the safety of navigation and peace.” The Philippines would pursue “robust ties with other forces” to ensure that it remained free from “forces that would disturb its peace.” If the veiled language of “forces” was unclear, an interview after the speech was explicit. US navy ships were needed in the region, he stated, to make it more difficult for China to misbehave. “When the cat is away the mice will play,” he said. He urged the US “to exercise its persuasive power over the South China Sea.”
Vietnam, the Philippines and other ASEAN members are playing a dangerous balancing game: while economically dependent on China, which is for many their largest trading partner, they are encouraging a greater US military presence as a means of asserting their own interests against Beijing. The result of the Obama administration’s aggressive intervention into South East Asia is a marked rise of regional tensions and the potential for military confrontations and clashes.

Bangladesh: U.S. And NATO Forge New Military Partnership In South Asia [ 70331 ] -
Rick Rozoff

Stop NATO - September 29, 2010

The Foreign Ministry of Bangladesh disclosed on September 26 that the United States had requested combat troops for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s military command in Afghanistan.

The effort to recruit Bangladeshi soldiers for the nine-year-old war was made in an overture by U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke to Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister Dipu Moni in New York City, presumably on the sidelines of or following last week’s United Nations General Assembly session.

A statement issued by the government of Bangladesh said that Holbrooke "sought for any kind of help like deploying combat troops, providing economic and development assistance or giving training among the law enforcement agencies." [1]

Should the government of Bangladesh accede to the American request, it would become the 48th official Troop Contributing Nation for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the seventh Asia-Pacific nation to provide troops to the North Atlantic military alliance for its war in South Asia, one which has further advanced across Afghanistan’s eastern border into Pakistan with marked ferocity during the past five days. NATO will have gained another major ally in the building of its Asian complement using the Afghan-Pakistani war theater as the grounds for integrating the armed forces of countries on the other side of the world from the North Atlantic for what is expanding into a global U.S.-led military network.

Bangladesh’s combat forces would join military units from Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand among Asia-Pacific countries, with a report that a 275-troop marine contingent from Tonga is also to arrive in Afghanistan soon. Japan has personnel assigned to NATO’s Provincial Reconstruction Teams in the country and in the past has supplied the U.S. with naval assistance for the war effort.

The inclusion of Bangladesh into the ranks of NATO’s ISAF, however, would constitute a milestone in two key ways. It would be the only country in South Asia with troops in the war zone aside from the two nations in which the expanding conflict is being fought: Afghanistan and Pakistan. And Bangladesh would be the second most populous state contributing to NATO’s military campaign, only surpassed by the U.S., as it has the seventh largest population in the world at 160 million.

The war in Afghanistan has provided the Pentagon and NATO the groundwork for working with the militaries of scores of nations under real world and real time combat conditions. Every European country except Belarus, Cyprus, Malta, Moldova, Russia and Serbia has deployed troops to Afghanistan under NATO command, as have the nations of the South Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The United Arab Emirates is the first Persian Gulf state to do so.

Though not yet official contributing nations, several other countries have personnel in Afghanistan or on the way, including Bahrain, Colombia, Egypt and Japan. Over a quarter of the world’s nations have supplied military contingents for the North Atlantic bloc’s war in Afghanistan.

In the past year both the U.S. and NATO have intensified activities aimed at integrating Bangladesh into the West’s military nexus, both in preparation for the deployment of its troops to Afghanistan and for solidifying what for the past decade has been referred to as Asian NATO.

This May 12 a roundtable meeting was held in the capital of Bangladesh entitled "The Role of NATO in the New Security Order" with the participation of several "experts, military personnel and former government officials from the region." [2] The title of the event suggests it was conducted in the context of last year’s discussions of the new NATO Strategic Concept held in several European and North American nations. The Indian subcontinent is far-removed from the North Atlantic Alliance’s point of origin, but the new doctrine to be adopted this November at NATO’s summit in Portugal will institutionalize the bloc’s expansion into an international military and – to use its own term – security organization.

The keynote address was delivered by former Norwegian defense minister Anders Christian Sjaastad and the roundtable as a whole "discuss[ed] the present and possible role of NATO in [the] new security order…."

A local newspaper account of the meeting reported that "Speakers at a roundtable here…said the greatest evolution taken place in NATO over the past 20 years was its transition from a static, defensive force to a force ready to take on security missions well beyond its traditional Trans-Atlantic borders."

"Since the last revision of the strategic concept, NATO forces have undertaken missions in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, counter-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden, counter-terrorism missions in the Mediterranean Sea, training missions in Iraq, and active military operations in Afghanistan." (NATO’s bombing campaign in and deployment of 60,000 troops to Bosnia in 1994-1995 predated the current Strategic Concept adopted in 1999.)

NATO has in fact expanded into a global military force, the first in history, and in the words of the former Norwegian defense chief, "It was the attacks of September 11 in 2001 and the Afghanistan campaign that turned what had been theoretical analysis into reality." [3]

"The event made NATO 'go global.’" [4]

Whether fully cognizant of it at the time or not, Sjaastad spoke volumes regarding NATO’s 21st century plans in stating that Asia "is where the action is nowadays. Europe, in comparison, is rather dull….All the global conflicts originated from this part of the world." Whether regarding the recent or remote past, his claim that all global conflicts originated from Asia is an absurd contention, but is indicative of NATO’s determination to pacify and subjugate "unruly" parts of the non-Euro-Atlantic world.

The opening remarks were made by retired Major General ANM Muniruzzaman, the founder and president of the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies which sponsored the event, who "spoke of the eastward expansion of NATO, saying that the institution has undergone a sea change. The New NATO had a fresh strategic concept and was expanding beyond its original Eurocentric perimeters." That is, Europe has been united under NATO control and now it is time to move on Asia.

Someone identified as retired Major General Roomi was in the audience and commented from the floor:

"NATO instead of doing policing is protecting its own security and posing a threat to others. And why are you in Afghanistan? It is not just because of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It is also because of the oil in the region. You want to 'tame’ Pakistan, Iran. All this has other motives. NATO only comes with its own interests at heart." [5] The former general evidently remembered which side the U.S. and its NATO allies were on during his country’s 1971 war of independence.

Since late last year the Pentagon has demonstrably increased efforts to pull the armed forces of Bangladesh into its geopolitical orbit.

In early November three U.S. military commanders visited Bangladesh. Theirs were names to conjure with: Lieutenant General Benjamin Mixon, Commanding General of United States Army Pacific and former commander of the Multi-National Division North in Iraq. Vice Admiral John Bird, commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, the largest forward-deployed fleet in the world. U.S. Marine Corps Major General Randolph Alles, Director for Strategic Planning and Policy at the U.S. Pacific Command, the largest overseas military command in the world.

The three made "separate trips, but the goal of each of the visits [was] to strengthen bilateral security cooperation between the two countries." They met with the chiefs of the host country’s army and navy as well as senior government officials. Beforehand the U.S. embassy in Dhaka announced that "Their discussions will focus on interoperability, readiness in the region, security-force assistance, and bilateral approaches to maintaining regional stability." [6]

Also in early November the U.S. led the first of four Tiger Shark military exercises held in the nation. The latest, Tiger Shark-4, ended on September 26.

At the close of the first, U.S. Ambassador James F. Moriarty attended a graduation ceremony for 59 navy commandos at the Bangladesh Navy Special Warfare and Diving Salvage Centre at the BNS (Bangladesh Naval Ship) Issa Khan Naval Base in Chittagong. "The commandos received specialised training during the US-Bangladesh 'Tiger Shark’ exercise" that ended on November 13.

According to the American envoy, "The United States Government will continue to assist the Government of Bangladesh in developing this professional, elite force.

"The training demonstrates the United States Government’s commitment to Bangladesh and to regional security by promoting military-to-military relationships throughout Asia and the Pacific." [7]

Tiger Shark-2 was held this May and U.S. army personnel "provided highly sophisticated training to the Bangladesh Army on counter terrorism, marksmanship and urban operations." Ambassador Moriarty "reaffirmed the US government’s support to the Bangladesh government’s efforts to establish a more capable military." [8]

Tiger Shark-3 occurred the next month and this time was multi-service on the Bangladeshi side, with army, navy, air force and coast guard units training with the U.S. to "enhance interoperability between the militaries of the two countries" in exercises that included "combat diving, infiltration and ex-filtration techniques, rappelling, helicopters operations, vessel boarding search and seizure, small boat maintenance and repair, maritime navigation, small unit tactics and small boat handling and tactics." [9]

Tiger Shark-4 was held from September 19-26 with 500 Bangladesh army, air force and navy personnel along with helicopters and ships and 350 U.S. troops and aircraft, helicopters and ships. For the first time the exercises provided comprehensive "joint military exposure between Bangladesh and the USA," and "a Commodore from the Bangladesh side and a Rear Admiral from the US side" led their respective nation’s forces. [10]

As the largest of the four Tiger Shark exercises was underway, 65 American airmen and two C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft arrived in Bangladesh for the three-day Cope South 2010 exercise to practice "aircraft generation and recovery, low-level navigation, tactical airdrop, and air-land missions; and conducting subject-matter expert exchanges in the operations, maintenance and rigging disciplines" [11] for regional disasters. In the words of U.S. 36th Airlift Squadron commander Lieutenant Colonel Tim Rapp, "The techniques our two nations share and the relationships we build will significantly ease planning and execution of any future combined efforts." [12]

Washington’s efforts to recruit Bangladesh into an Asia-Pacific military alliance that includes all but a small handful of nations in the region complements its building a new army and upgrading strategic air bases in Afghanistan. Its penetration of Pakistan’s armed forces. Its further forging of a strategic military alliance with India. [13]

After employing NATO to subjugate Europe, launching U.S. Africa Command to gain military dominance over the 54-nation continent, and occupying and pacifying most of the Middle East, the Pentagon is concentrating on Asia and increasingly on South Asia.

'A Chinese state-owned newspaper said on Monday that "war is inevitable" between China and the United States over the South China Sea unless Washington stops demanding Beijing halt the building of artificial islands in the disputed waterway.

The Global Times, an influential nationalist tabloid owned by the ruling Communist Party's official newspaper the People's Daily, said in an editorial that China was determined to finish its construction work, calling it the country's "most important bottom line."

The editorial comes amid rising tensions over China's land reclamation in the Spratly archipelago of the South China Sea. China last week said it was "strongly dissatisfied" after a US spy plane flew over areas near the reefs, with both sides accusing each other of stoking instability.

China should "carefully prepare" for the possibility of a conflict with the United States, the newspaper said.

"If the United States' bottomline is that China has to halt its activities, then a US-China war is inevitable in the South China Sea," the newspaper said. "The intensity of the conflict will be higher than what people usually think of as 'friction'."

Such commentaries are not official policy statements, but are sometimes read as a reflection of government thinking. The Global Times is among China's most nationalist newspapers.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have overlapping claims.

The United States has routinely called on all claimants to halt reclamation in the Spratlys, but accuses China of carrying out work on a scale that far outstrips any other country.

Washington has also vowed to keep up air and sea patrols in the South China Sea amid concerns among security experts that China might impose air and sea restrictions in the Spratlys once it completes work on its seven artificial islands.

China has said it had every right to set up an Air Defense Identification Zone in the South China Sea but that current conditions did not warrant one.

The Global Times said "risks are still under control" if Washington takes into account China's peaceful rise.

"We do not want a military conflict with the United States, but if it were to come, we have to accept it," the newspaper said. —Reuters_________________'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.

The Philippines and Japan are to start talks on allowing Japanese military aircraft and naval vessels to use bases in the Philippines for refueling and picking up supplies, enabling them to extend their patrol range deep into the South China Sea, Philippine President Benigno Aquino said.

“We will be starting discussion on this,” Aquino said at a press conference in Tokyo on Friday.

Japan is considering joint air patrols with the United States in the South China Sea, sources told Reuters in April, in response to China’s increasingly assertive push for influence as it builds air strips and other man-made islands in the disputed waters.

A Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), would clear the way for the Japanese military to use Philippines’ bases on a rotational basis, similar to the way the U.S. does now. An ability to refuel close to the South China Sea would allow Japan’s Self Defense Forces to keep their aircraft on patrol longer and cover a greater distance.

The decision to start talks on a VFA was not included in a joint statement on Thursday after Aquino met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The two leaders, however, discussed the VFA and agreed to open up negotiations, a source with knowledge of the meeting told Reuters. He declined to be identified because he is not authorized to talk to the media.

Aquino’s trip comes as the two countries deepen their security ties. Unable to match the scale of the Chinese fleet, Manila is looking for allies in its territorial spat with China. Tokyo is concerned that Chinese land reclamation projects in the South China Sea will expand Beijing’s influence in a region through which about $5 trillion of sea-borne trade passes annually, much of it heading to and from Japan.

In an interview in January, Admiral Robert Thomas, commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, told Reuters that Washington would welcome Japanese air patrols there because their presence would provide a stabilizing counterweight to a growing fleet of Chinese fishing and naval vessels.'

Can anybody else hear the sound of distant drums, or is it a trick of my imagination?_________________'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.

Chinese officials say their country faces a growing threat from militants and separatists
Chinese officials say their country faces a growing threat from militants and separatists AFP/Getty Images
China's parliament passed a controversial new anti-terrorism law on Sunday that requires technology firms to hand over sensitive information such as encryption keys to the government and allows the military to venture overseas on counter-terror operations.

Chinese officials say their country faces a growing threat from militants and separatists, especially in its unruly Western region of Xinjiang, where hundreds have died in violence in the past few years.

The law has attracted deep concern in Western capitals, not only because of worries it could violate human rights such as freedom of speech, but because of the cyber provisions. U.S. President Barack Obama has said that he had raised concerns about the law directly with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Speaking after China's largely rubber-stamp parliament passed the law, Li Shouwei, deputy head of the parliament's criminal law division under the legislative affairs committee, said China was simply doing what other Western nations already do in asking technology firms to help fight terror.

"This rule accords with the actual work need of fighting terrorism and is basically the same as what other major countries in the world do," Li told reporters.

This will not affect the normal operation of tech companies and they have nothing to fear in terms of having "backdoors" installed or losing intellectual property rights, he added.

Officials in Washington have argued the law, combined with new draft banking and insurance rules and a slew of anti-trust investigations, amounts to unfair regulatory pressure targeting foreign companies.

China's national security law adopted in July requires all key network infrastructure and information systems to be "secure and controllable".

The anti-terrorism law also permits the People's Liberation Army to get involved in anti-terrorism operations overseas, though experts have said China faces big practical and diplomatic problems if it ever wants to do this.

An Weixing, head of the Public Security Ministry's counter-terrorism division, said China faced a serious threat from terrorists, especially "East Turkestan" forces, China's general term for Islamists separatists it says operate in Xinjiang.

"Terrorism is the public enemy of mankind, and the Chinese government will oppose all forms of terrorism," An said.

Rights groups, though, doubt the existence of a cohesive militant group in Xinjiang and say the unrest mostly stems from anger among the region's Muslim Uighur people over restrictions on their religion and culture.

The new law also restricts the right of media to report on details of terror attacks, including a provision that media and social media cannot report on details of terror activities that might lead to imitation, nor show scenes that are "cruel and inhuman"._________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

The carrier John C. Stennis, two destroyers, two cruisers and the 7th Fleet flagship have sailed into the disputed waters in recent days, according to military officials. The carrier strike group is the latest show of force in the tense region, with the U.S. asserting that China is militarizing the region to guard its excessive territorial claims.

Judges at an arbitration tribunal in The Hague on Tuesday rejected China's claims to economic rights across large swathes of the South China Sea in a ruling that will be claimed as a victory by the Philippines.

"There was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the 'nine-dash line'," the court said, referring to a demarcation line on a 1947 map of the sea, which is rich in energy, mineral and fishing resources.

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In the 497-page ruling, judges also found that Chinese law enforcement patrols had risked colliding with Philippine fishing vessels in parts of the sea and caused irreparable damage to coral reefs with construction work.

China, which boycotted the case brought by the Philippines, has said it will not be bound by any ruling.

In reaction, China said: "The arbitration tribunal made the illegal and invalid so-called final verdict on the South China Sea dispute on July 12. Regarding this issue, China has made the statement for many times that it is against the international law that the Aquino III administration of Philippines unilaterally requested the arbitration. The arbitration tribunal has no jurisdiction on this matter."

Manila had contested China's expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea, which the Philippines contends are invalid under international law.
This is the first time a South China Sea territorial dispute has been brought to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague and many think it will rule in favor of the Southeast Asian nation.

Control of the region is valuable because more than $5 trillion worth of global trade passes through the South China Sea each year, and China has been accused of ramping up tensions over control in recent years by building artificial islands on reefs, on which it has added airstrips and other military-style installations.
The U.S. is seeking to maintain "freedom of navigation" in the region for its ships including military vessels.

The case is under scrutiny globally as it could change the region's geopolitical landscape and set future precedence for similar challenges.
In China, the guns were out on Weibo where #SouthChinaSeaArbitration was a top trending topic on the Twitter-like social media platform on Tuesday.

Rumor (who attached this graphic with the nine dash line):

"Vow to protect the complete territorial integrity of the People's Republic of China! This is our China!"

CNBC
Li Dacan:

The judgment is not important. Arbitration that is only agreed on by one party is nothing more than toilet paper. This is my land; why should I let someone else decide what belongs to me.

Genie from a different land:

Haha, America is arbitrating what belongs to China? Are you crazy? What kind of logic is this? Regulate gun control in your country before talking to me. My wish is world peace.

The Philippines made its claim under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which both countries are signatories of.

China, however, says its historic rights predate the UNCLOS and are not at odds with its provisions.

China has been stressing its rights to the territory relentlessly in everything from official pronouncements to press editorials.

China had long said the court has no jurisdiction over the matter and will not abide the judgment.

A China Coast Guard ship (top) and a Philippine supply boat engage in a stand off as the Philippine boat attempts to reach the Second Thomas Shoal, a remote South China Sea a reef claimed by both countries, on March 29, 2014.
Jay Directo | AFP | Getty Images
A China Coast Guard ship (top) and a Philippine supply boat engage in a stand off as the Philippine boat attempts to reach the Second Thomas Shoal, a remote South China Sea a reef claimed by both countries, on March 29, 2014.
China has said repeatedly that it prefers to negotiate directly with affected parties.

But countries may not be amenable to that idea, said Aaron Connelly, a research fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy.

"Over time, Southeast Asian countries have realized that China will offer these assurances and then withdraw them later," he told CNBC's "Capital Connection."

"What can be relied upon in the long term is international law. That's why the Philippines after 10 years of negotiation decided to take China to the PCA over this dispute," Connelly said.

New Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has indicated that he wants friendly relations with China and has previously said he was open to talks with the economic giant, possibly about joint ventures in the development of the disputed region.

China is wrong about this
But, I suppose, making the point that the US is flaunting the law all over the world
The Philippines is totally controlled by the US Mafia - - so I suppose the Chinese are having a dig at them - - - - all very worrying

China has no claim to large tracts of the South China Sea and has violated The Philippines' sovereignty by building artificial islands in the smaller country's waters, an international court has found in a landmark ruling.
In a judgement that is even tougher on Beijing than experts anticipated, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague has rebuked China on everything from its interference in its smaller neighbour's fishing to the environmental devastation wrought by its large-scale construction of islands on fragile coral reefs.
The tribunal threw out China's "nine dash line" which asserts the country's claim to most of the South China Sea based on historic rights, insisting that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is the prevailing law.
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"The tribunal concluded that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the 'nine-dash line'," it said in a statement.
The judgement sets the scene for a tense period in international diplomacy, with Beijing likely to consider stepping up its activity in the waters as a show of its disregard for the tribunal's jurisdiction.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop issued a statement late on Tuesday night calling on both sides to abide by the ruling, describing it as "final and binding" and "an important test case for how the region can manage disputes peacefully".
She stressed the finding was not about who owned the rocks and reefs but about "the lawful uses of our oceans" - an implicit rejection of Beijing's stance that the tribunal had no jurisdiction.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs swiftly issued a statement saying the ruling was "null and void and has no binding force".
Filipinos react as the tribunal ruled against China.
Filipinos react as the tribunal ruled against China. Photo: AP
It accused the Philippines of "bad faith" and accused the tribunal of abusing the UN convention and getting its facts wrong.
South China Sea.

An activist wearing a hat representing the Philippine navy boat "Sierra Madre", now half-submerged at Second Thomas shoal of the Spratly islands, sits with protesters during a demonstration in front of the Chinese consulate in Manila on July 12, 2016
An activist wearing a hat representing the Philippine navy boat "Sierra Madre", now half-submerged at Second Thomas shoal of the Spratly islands, sits with protesters during a demonstration in front of the Chinese consulate in Manila on July 12, 2016.PHOTO: AFP
PUBLISHEDJUL 13, 2016, 5:00 AM SGT
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Tay Hwee PengAssistant Foreign Editor
None of the Spratly Islands is an island, the Arbitral Tribunal at The Hague ruled yesterday.

The Philippines had sought, among other things, a ruling on whether certain maritime features claimed by both China and the Philippines are islands, rocks or low-tide elevations under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).

The distinction is important as the status would determine whether the feature is entitled to a 200- nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf of its own, a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea, or no maritime zone.

The tribunal said in its ruling that it first undertook a technical evaluation as to whether certain coral reefs claimed by China are or are not above water at high tide. It also relied heavily on archival materials and historical hydrographic surveys.

Pointing out that Unclos classifies features on the basis of their "natural condition", it noted that "many of the reefs in the South China Sea have been heavily modified by recent land reclamation and construction".

Under Articles 13 and 121 of Unclos, features that are above water at high tide generate an entitlement to at least a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea, whereas features that are submerged at high tide generate no entitlement to maritime zones.

Under Unclos, only "a naturally formed area of land above water at high tide" that can support human or economic life - on its own - can be considered an island, entitled to a 200-nautical-mile EEZ and continental shelf of its own.

The tribunal said many of the features in the Spratly Islands are currently controlled by one or another of the littoral states, which have constructed installations and maintain personnel there. The current presence of official personnel on many of the features is dependent on "outside resources and support" and many of the features have been modified to improve their habitability.

As such, it concluded that all of the high-tide features in the Spratlys, including Itu Aba, are legally "rocks", entitled to only a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea. While not referred to in its written submission, the Philippines in an oral argument at the tribunal had said Taiwan-held Itu Aba cannot sustain economic activity and therefore is not entitled to an EEZ. Manila's gambit was that if 48ha Itu Aba - as the largest natural land formation in the Spratlys - cannot be considered an island, then none of the land features in the chain can be considered as one.

The tribunal agreed with the Philippines that Johnson Reef, Cuarteron Reef, and Fiery Cross Reef are high-tide features and that Subi Reef, Mischief Reef, and Second Thomas Shoal were submerged at high tide in their natural condition.

China to build nuclear power stations on disputed islands in South China Sea
Beijing says Japan should ‘exercise caution in its own words and deeds, and stop hyping up and interfering’ in a dispute some fear could lead to war

China plans to build nuclear power stations in the South China Sea to establish “effective control” of disputed islands, officials have reportedly said.

The China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) made the announcement just two days after the Hague-based tribunal concluded China had “no legal basis” for its claim to almost all of the South China Sea.

The area is home to rich fishing grounds and oil and gas fields, while some £3.8 trillion in global trade passes through the area every year.

According to the state-run Global Times, the CNNC wrote on a social media account: “Marine nuclear power platform construction will be used to support China’s effective control in the South China Sea.”

The power plants would be created to “ensure freshwater” supplies on the Spratly islands, the CNNC added.

“In the past, the freshwater provision to troops stationed in the South China Sea could not be guaranteed, and could only be provided by boats delivering barrels of water,” the CNNC said.

“In the future, as the South China Sea electricity and power system is strengthened, China will speed up the commercial development of the South China Sea region.”

The tribunal ruled against China after the Philippines asked it to rule on ownership of several of the disputed areas. China boycotted the case.

A number of other countries, including Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam, also claim ownership of various parts of the South China Sea.

China is also involved in disputes over islands in the East China Sea with countries including Japan and South Korea.

On Friday, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that Japan should stop interfering with the South China Sea issue.

Meeting at a regional summit in the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar, Mr Li told Mr Abe that China’s stance on the South China Sea was completely in line with international law, state news agency Xinhua reported.

“Japan is not a state directly involved in the South China Sea issue, and thus should exercise caution in its own words and deeds, and stop hyping up and interfering,” Mr Li added.

Japan’s Kyodo news agency said Mr Abe told Mr Li that international rules must be respected.

Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Yasuhisa Kawamura said Mr Abe “reiterated the fundamental positions regarding the South China Sea” during his meeting with Mr Li.

US-China tension in the last few months has sharply increased, with both nations exchanging some heated dialogue over the contested issue of the South China Sea. Although the prospect of the US and China actually engaging in battle is still an abstract idea, the notion became a little more concrete recently with the decision of the RAND corporation (long-time New World Order think tank) to release a study entitled War with China – Thinking Through the Unthinkable. The RAND corporation has been intimately involved with US military intelligence ever since its inception after World War 2, and has a history not of reactively responding to trends, but rather proactively shaping them. I would suggest this is yet more evidence that the Anglo-American-Zionist NWO manipulators are now actively working on causing US-China tension, in order to bring China into a potential conflict that could become World War 3. Having spent a lot of the last 5 years (since the invasion of Syria in 2011) aggravating Russia and being in an indirect proxy war with the Russians, the US has now turned some of its attention to China as well. Clearly, WW3 with China is no longer “unthinkable” since it is now being openly discussed and evaluated.

RAND Study: US-China War Would Be “Prolonged, Destructive and Inconclusive”

The authors of the RAND study claim that “while neither state wants war, both states’ militaries have plans to fight one” and that “Chinese losses would greatly exceed U.S. losses, and the gap would only grow as fighting persisted. But, by 2025, that gap could be much smaller. Even then, however, China could not be confident of gaining military advantage, which suggests the possibility of a prolonged and destructive, yet inconclusive, war.” This isn’t the first time RAND has been preoccupied with US-China tension. This recent 2016 has been preceded by many easier studies, such as this 2015 study entitled The U.S.-China Military Scorecard – Forces, Geography, and the Evolving Balance of Power, 1996–2017 which states:

“Despite U.S. military improvements, China has made relative gains in most operational areas, in some cases with startling speed … The U.S. military should adopt operational concepts and strategies that capitalize on potential advantages and utilize the geographic size and depth of the theater, as well as areas of particular U.S. military strength.”
There is also this 2015 study entitled China’s Incomplete Military Transformation – Assessing the Weaknesses of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) which states:

“The PLA’s capabilities aimed at deterring or, if necessary, countering U.S. military intervention in the Asia-Pacific region, including systems designed to hold U.S. military bases, aircraft carriers, space systems, and computer networks at risk have improved markedly.”
All in all, the trend is that China is rapidly improving its military strength and capability, but RAND’s conclusion is that the US is still superior, although if war were to break out, it may be decided by non-military factors such as economic ones.

Rekindling the Cold War, This Time with Russia and China

Last month the Hague Tribunal ruled on the issue of the disputed territory of the South China Sea. It concluded that “there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line’”. The nine-dash line was a demarcation China made on the map in 1947 to claim their supposed territory. The Hague ruling angered China, who boycotted the hearings and ignored the decision on the basis that the Tribunal has no jurisdiction over the matter.

The issue over the South China Sea didn’t have to be America’s issue; according to renowned journalist John Pilger, Hillary made it so, and the current Obama administration has made a point of focusing on enlarging its forces in South East Asia in its Pivot to Asia:

“As her emails show, Clinton appears to want to destroy Syria in order to protect Israel’s nuclear monopoly. Remember what she did to Libya and Gaddafi. In 2010, as secretary of state, she turned the regional dispute in the South China’s Sea into America’s dispute. She promoted it to an international issue, a flashpoint. The following year, Obama announced his “pivot to Asia,” the jargon for the biggest build-up of US military forces in Asia since World War Two. The current Defense Secretary Ash Carter recently announced that missiles and men would be based in the Philippines, facing China. This is happening while NATO continues its strange military buildup in Europe, right on Russia’s borders.”

The US is not the only one building up forces. China has been building artificial islands in the aforementioned South China Sea’s Spratly Islands by digging up underwater sediment and depositing the material on reefs. Then, China has built air strips and has test landed planes there, much to the ire of Vietnam. Pilger is currently working on a film The Coming War on China which will tell the story of why US-China tension has been escalating. As Pilger writes, the film will reveal that:

“… the US is preparing for a new provocative cold war that has every chance of becoming a hot war. Washington has begun to move its main missile and naval forces into the Asia-Pacific in order to surround and ‘confront’ China, whose extraordinary economic rise in recent years is regarded in Washington as a threat to American dominance.”

In commenting on these ominous indications, Peter Symonds of World Socialist Web Site writes that:

“The RAND Corporation paper is a chilling confirmation of the warnings made by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) in its statement of February 18, 2016 titled “Socialism and the Fight Against War.” The statement notes that at a certain point, military fatalism becomes a significant contributing factor to the outbreak of war. It cites an international relations specialist who wrote: “Once war is assumed to be unavoidable, the calculations of leaders and militaries change. The question is no longer whether there will or should be a war, but when the war can be fought most advantageously.”

It is a massive step backwards in the evolution of humanity for the world’s greatest superpower, the USA, to be following the Wolfowitz Doctrine and rekindling the Cold War, after the Soviet Union finally collapsed in 1991. There is no good reason for the US to make more enemies, when Russia and China would willingly cooperate with it. Russia’s Putin has repeatedly expressed his desire to peacefully coexist with the USA. However, as always, US foreign and military policy is not being driven by true American national interest.

US-China tension is part of the larger strategy of the New World Order: a Global Government on the ashes of chaos.
US-China Tension: On a Deeper Level

If RAND is correct in their assessment that a WW3 scenario between US and China would be long and inclusive, that may suit some people just fine. I am referring to the NWO cabal of international bankers and unelected shadowy figures who have no allegiance to particular countries. The chief family of the NWO, the Rothschilds, have a documented history of funding both sides of wars (as they did in WW1 and WW2). That way, they make lots of money while countries fight each other, and they also get to determine who wins by denying credit to the side they have designated to lose. Since the Rothschilds, who have now intermarried and interbred with the Rockefellers and other rich families to some degrees, control the central banks of so many countries around the world, will they be able to pull off this same strategy once again? Or will enough people realize what’s going on and stop the rush towards war? Feel free to give your comment below.

China’s cabinet, Beijing municipal government, along with the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China and Commercial Aircraft Corp of China has invested into the new Aero-Engine Corporation of China (AECC).

The new enterprise, which will reportedly have 50 billion yuan ($7.5 billion) in registered capital and 96,000 employees, will focus on developing both military and commercial jet engines.

Founding the company was a “strategic move” to make China an aviation power, according to President Xi Jinping.

China is manufacturing planes, but has been struggling for decades to build its own jet engines that could meet global requirements and increase China’s military power.

China's air force imports Russian-made engines. Chinese commercial aircraft, the narrow-body C919, is powered by engines produced by a US-French joint venture, while engines for the ARJ21 airliner are made by General Electric.

The establishment of AECC will help China reduce its reliance on foreign producers and potentially develop a self-sufficient aerospace sector to meet the requirements of domestic commercial and military aviation._________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

THE COMING WAR ON CHINA (CERT TBC)
The Coming War on China by John Pilger

The Coming War on China is John Pilger's 60th Film for ITV. Pilger reveals what the news doesn't - that the world's greatest military power, the United States, and the world's second economic power, China, both nuclear-armed, are on the road to war. Pilger's film is a warning and an inspiring story of resistance.

DocDays screening: John Pilger will join us for a live Q&A after the film.

Thursday 8 December 6.15pm, Soho.
Soho
Bloomsbury
Victoria
Mayfair
Chelsea
Richmond
Wimbledon
Canterbury
Knutsford
Ripon
Sheffield
ShareThis Copy and Paste - See more at: http://www.curzoncinemas.com/soho/docdays/docdaysthecomingwaronchina_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

JP: The Coming War on China is my 60th film and perhaps one of the most urgent. It continues the theme of illuminating the imposition of great power behind a facade of propaganda as news. In 2011, President Obama announced a ‘pivot to Asia’ of US forces: almost two-thirds of American naval power would be transferred to Asia and the Pacific by 2020.

The undeclared rationale for this was the ‘threat’ from China, by some measure now the greatest economic power. The Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, says US policy is to confront those ‘who see America’s dominance and want to take that away from us’.

The film examines power in both countries and how nuclear weapons, in American eyes, are the bedrock of its dominance. In its first ‘chapter’, the film reveals how most of the population of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific were unwittingly made into nuclear guinea pigs in a programme whose secrets – and astonishing archive – are related to the presence of a missile base now targeting China. The Coming War on China will be released in cinemas in the UK on December 1st and broadcast on ITV (in the UK) on December 6th.

TJC: How do you assess Australia’s role in America’s ‘Pivot to Asia’?

JP: Australia is virtually the 51st state of the US. Although China is Australia’s biggest trader, on which much of the national economy relies, ‘confronting China’ is the diktat from Washington. The Australian political establishment, especially the military and intelligence agencies, are fully integrated into what is known as the ‘alliance’, along with the dominant Murdoch media. I often feel a certain sadness about the way my own country – with all its resources and opportunities – seems locked into such an unnecessary, dangerous obsequious role in the world. If the ‘pivot’ proceeds, Australia could find itself fighting, yet again, a great power’s war.

TJC: With regards to the British and American media, how can the US get away with selling China as a threat when it is encircling China?

JP: That’s a question that goes to the heart of modern-day propaganda. China is encircled by a ‘noose’ of some 400 US bases, yet the news has ignored this while concentrating on the ‘threat’ of China building airstrips on disputed islets in the South China Sea, clearly as a defence to a US Navy blockade.

TJC: Obama’s visit to Japan, and particularly to Hiroshima, was a really cynical act. What was your impression of Japan and the political situation there?

JP: Japan is an American colony in all but name – certainly in terms of its relationship with the rest of the world and especially China. The historian Bruce Cumings explores this in an interview in the film. Within the constraints of American dominance, indeed undeterred by Washington, Japan’s current prime minister Shinzo Abe has developed an extreme nationalist position, in which contrition for Japanese actions in the Second World War is anathema and the post-war ‘peace constitution’ is likely to be changed.

Abe has gone as far as boasting that Japan will use nuclear weapons if it wants. In any US conflict with China, Japan – which last year announced its biggest ever ‘defence’ budget – would play a critical role. There are 32 US military installations on the Japanese island of Okinawa, facing China. However, there is a sense in modern Asia that power in the world has indeed moved east and peaceful ‘Asian solutions’ to regional animosities are possible.

TJC: Do you think the new trade and investment deals like the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and especially the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) will affect China’s business operations?

JP: It’s difficult to say, but I doubt it. What is remarkable about the rise of China is the way it has built, almost in the blink of an eye, a trade, investment and banking structure that rivals that of the Bretton Woods institutions. Unknown to many of us, China is developing its ‘New Silk Road’ to Europe at an astonishing pace. China’s response to threats from Washington is a diplomacy that’s tied to this development, and which includes a burgeoning alliance with Russia.

This interview was originally published by the Plymouth Institute for Peace Research.

Whitehall_Bin_Men wrote:

THE COMING WAR ON CHINA (CERT TBC)
The Coming War on China by John Pilger

The Coming War on China is John Pilger's 60th Film for ITV. Pilger reveals what the news doesn't - that the world's greatest military power, the United States, and the world's second economic power, China, both nuclear-armed, are on the road to war. Pilger's film is a warning and an inspiring story of resistance.

DocDays screening: John Pilger will join us for a live Q&A after the film.

Three times a day, alarms ring out through the streets of China's ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, and shopkeepers rush out of their stores swinging government-issued wooden clubs.

In mandatory anti-terror drills conducted under police supervision and witnessed by Reuters on a recent visit, they fight off imaginary knife-wielding assailants. Armored paramilitary and police vehicles circle with sirens blaring.

China says it faces a serious threat from Islamist extremists in this far Western Xinjiang region. Beijing accuses separatists among the Muslim Uighur ethnic minority there of stirring up tensions with the ethnic Han Chinese majority and plotting attacks elsewhere in China.

A historic trading post, Kashgar is also central to China's One Belt, One Road (OBOR) Initiative, President Xi Jinping's signature foreign and economic policy involving massive infrastructure spending linking China to Asia, the Middle East and beyond.

China's worst fears are that a large-scale attack would blight this year's diplomatic setpiece, an OBOR summit attended by world leaders planned for Beijing in May.

State media say the drills, and other measures such as a network of thousands of new street-corner police posts, are aimed making everyone feel safer.

But many residents say the drills are just part of an oppressive security operation that has been ramped up in Kashgar and other cities in Xinjiang's Uighur heartland in recent months. (For a graphic on China's Xinjiang crackdown click tmsnrt.rs/2nQrQm4)

As well as taking part in drills, shopkeepers must, at their own expense, install password-activated security doors, "panic buttons" and cameras that film not just the street outside but also inside their stores, sending a direct video feed to police.

For Uighurs like the owner of an online multimedia company facing one of Kashgar's main streets it is not about security, but mass surveillance.

"We have no privacy," said the business owner who, like almost everyone Reuters spoke to in Kashgar, did not want to give his name. "They want to see what you're up to."

A Chinese security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the new security measures in Xinjiang were not politically motivated, but based on fresh developments and intelligence. He declined to elaborate.

The Xinjiang government and the State Council Information Office, which doubles as the Communist Party spokesman's office, did not respond to requests for comment.

China routinely denies pursuing repressive policies in Xinjiang, and points to the vast sums it spends on economic development in the resource-rich region. Xinjiang's gross domestic product last year rose 7.6 per cent, above the national average.

RELIGIOUS RE-EDUCATION

Since ethnic riots in the regional capital Urumqi in 2009, Xinjiang has been plagued by bouts of deadly violence.

The incidence of attacks reported in state media have actually declined markedly, both in frequency and scale, since a spate of bombings and mass stabbings in Xinjiang and southwestern Yunnan Province in 2014.

But Chinese state media say the threat remains high and the Communist Party has vowed to continue what it terms its own "war on terror" against spreading Islamist extremism.

In Xinjiang, this can also be seen at weekly flag-raising ceremonies that Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people who formed the majority in Xinjiang before an influx of Han Chinese, are required to attend to denounce religious extremism and pledge fealty under the Chinese flag.

At one such event witnessed by Reuters in Hotan, a former Silk Road oasis town 500 km (300 miles) southeast of Kashgar, more than 1,000 people filed onto an open-air basketball court where Party officials checked their names against an attendance list and inspected their dress and appearance.

"Best you take this off or I'll send you to re-education," said one female official, pulling back the black hijab worn by a middle-aged Uighur woman to expose her forehead and hair.

Hotan authorities offer 2,000 yuan ($290) rewards for those who report "face coverings and robes, youth with long beards, or other popular religious customs that have been radicalized", as part of a wider incentive system that rewards actionable intelligence on imminent attacks.

Xinjiang lawmakers this week approved legislation extending a prohibition on "abnormal" beards and the wearing of veils in public places across the whole region. The new rules come into force on Saturday.

This month a video purportedly released by the Islamic State group showed Uighur fighters training in Iraq and vowing that blood would "flow in rivers" in China.

"GRID-STYLE" SURVEILLANCE

The architect of the anti-terror drills and other new measures in Xinjiang is Chen Quanguo, appointed Communist Party boss in the region in August in what analysts said was an implicit endorsement of his hard-line management of ethnic strife in neighboring Tibet.

Chen has made his mark swiftly, culminating last month in what state media described as mass "anti-terror" rallies across Xinjiang's four largest cities involving tens of thousands of paramilitary troops and police.

One of Chen's most visible initiatives has been to build thousands of what the authorities call "convenience police stations" across Xinjiang and hire some 30,000 new officers to man them.

They are present on almost every intersection in Kashgar, typically just hundreds of meters apart, in what Chen calls a "grid-style social management" system he pioneered in Tibet.

Local state media have praised the initiative as a new benchmark in community-based policing. Critics, including Uighur and rights groups, say the real purpose of the convenience police stations is to spy on the population.

Citizens are encouraged to use the stations to charge their mobile phones, have a cup of tea or shelter from the elements.

"I don't know anyone who has been in there," said one Han Chinese taxi driver, who only wanted to be identified by his surname Huang, suggesting few have taken up on the offer to huddle beside the riot police and soldiers that occupy the stations.

But Huang, reflecting the region's simmering ethnic tensions, added that the increased security made him feel safer.

"Some people think it's too much, that it's just a few Uighurs," he said. "But if they chop your family, then you'll know."

ECONOMY OR SECURITY?

James Leibold, an expert on Chinese ethnic policy at La Trobe University in Melbourne, said the focus on security runs counter to Beijing's goal of using the OBOR initiative to boost Xinjiang's economy and improve its integration with the rest of China, because it would disrupt the flow of people and ideas.

"Those two are just fundamentally at odds," he said.

Spending on security in Xinjiang is rising, jumping nearly 20 percent in 2016 to more than 30 billion yuan ($4.35 billion), according to state media.

That can be seen in the metal detectors and airport-style security checks in place at major public areas, including Kashgar's ancient Id Kah mosque, bazaars, malls and hotels.

Police spot document checks are carried out on pedestrians, with mobile phones inspected for extremist videos or use of banned chat applications like Telegram, WhatsApp and Twitter. Mobile internet speeds have been slowed from 4G to 3G.

"There's maybe 5,000 people making trouble, but the rest of us, 10 million of us, pay the price," one Uighur man in Kashgar told Reuters.

Reuters was tailed closely by local police in Kashgar. A reporter returning to his hotel at 1 a.m. found officers waiting in the lobby.

When asked about the reason for the security one of the officers said Kashgar's preparations for OBOR were of paramount importance.

"When you see military and police vehicles patrolling the street in your country, what do you think it's for?" he said. "It's for safety. Kashgar will be a hub for travel. Everything must be good."

Not only Russia is being encircled with NATO eastward expansion, with the Installation of American weapons systems, military bases, and the relocation of NATO troops to the Russian border, systematically, the same happens with China. The latest step is the announcement of the Pentagram, it is the radar to build stations on the Pacific Islands of the mini-state of Palau. Is claimed, it comes to the Monitoring of air and Maritime transport, the prevention of illegal fishing in the waters around Palau and also the tracking of North Korean missile firings. In the same way as it is a lie, the construction of the so-called missile defense system in Poland and Romania, serve only to avert the North Korean and Iranian missiles to protect Europe, but the fact is, the United States a nuclear first strike against Russia, directed the radar stations on Palau, in truth, against China. The "danger" of an attack from North Korea is just an excuse.

The Radar System will consist of a series of radar towers, which will be distributed to the over 300 Islands of the Palau archipelago, what is the cause to this pristine dream of Islands, a considerable environmental damage. Not only piers and the concrete foundations have to be built, but also diesel generators for the power supply installed and building to be erected for the maintenance teams.

The Islands of Palau are a Paradise for divers, but the archipelago is quite isolated.

Official of the two countries, the United States and Palau, met at 16. August, at the locations of the Radar-discuss Matrix, such as the office of the President of Palau, and the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Koror, jointly announced.

"The Radar System is Palau advanced Maritime law enforcement in its territorial waters permit, and in the exclusive economic zone, while the United States is a greater awareness of the airspace for the safety prepare, "the statement said.

Palau occupied a strategically important Position in the vicinity of the Philippines and much closer to the Chinese mainland to the Korean Peninsula. Therefore, the justification for the establishment of a radar system on Palau, a sham.

The Americans have long sought a replacement for the loss of the Navy and air force bases in the Philippines, since they have abandoned in the 1990-years, and the current President Rodrigo Duterte does not consider the United States as a friend and increasingly China and Russia.

The new Radar System will complement the existing American radar stations on the island of Guam and the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, which are part of the system, to monitor missile launches in the Asian continent.

Historically, Palau 1543 discovered by the Spanish and taken possession of. In the late 19th century. Century colonial, the Spaniards terrorizing the Islands.

By the defeat in the Spanish-American war, 1898 sold to Spain Palau along with the largest part of the rest of the Caroline Islands, in accordance with the German-Spanish Treaty of 1899 as part of German new Guinea to the German Empire.

Palau was a German colony until February 15. August 1914 Japan declared war on the German Reich and the Islands occupied. Later, Palau was awarded as a mandate territory by the League of Nations Japan.

During the II world war, Palau was liberated by the Americans and then from Washington to be administered. The small Nation with only 17,600 inhabitants, got in 1994 on the independence, but America is in 50 years for the defence responsible. The country has neither the military nor its own currency and uses the US Dollar.

The construction of the new radar system has to do with the prevention of illegal fishing and the protection of the economy of Palau, therefore, nothing, because already in July 2014, a monitoring system was installed.

It is the Sea Dragon System, which is the SlimSAR of the company Artemis used air-based Sensors, the illegal fishing activities from the altitude to observe and document.

In other words, there are drones flying with Radar, TV and infrared cameras on the sea and the ship traffic.

As I said, it goes back to the Warbringers in Washington, only to encircle China, complete with military bases and war and surveillance technology. An alleged threat from North Korea and the protection of the fish stocks around Palau that are only back clear justifications for the good faith.

Imagine the opposite case, China would say, it's a huge radar builds plant in Jamaica, in order to protect the area around the Caribbean island South of Florida against the "illegal fishing", Washington, hysterical would freak out. The U.S. military would view it as a Chinese provocation and threat to the US mainland.

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